16 stairs to start in again. "Well, it's been a enjoyable little walk." He could feel the air crowding into his lungs again, so hard that it made his whole chest feel hot inside. "Maybe it Rin't finished yet," he said. " w 11 . · f I , . " e , It]s or ll1e. m gOIng up. "I'm coming up too." "No you won't." "Why won't I?" Without his mean- ing it to, he could hear his voice getting louder. "What you got to conceal up there? " "Oh, Walter! It ain't that and you know it. But you know what'll happen. You and Ma." He hadn't realized that he had moved closer to her, but he must have, for suddenly she stepped back a pace and stared up at him. "Walter," she said. "You been drinklng?" "I have not been drinking," he said, and he let his voice go louder still when he said it. Let her scare a little, he was thinking; at least she wasn't laughing at him any more. She was paying atten- tion to him now. "Well, then," she said, and she began talking faster. "Listen, '\Valter. This kind of chasing around ....,"""' , 4 :':.L , .' , '. ..' o..::: :::::-"" ,.. : II "'.' ,. " ' I J i!:, .,::. ; ; 1 ::"$"::, ' ' ', -' :;: < !; :';:; ; : :,,' ":H:"', ..:',,<, j "l: ;' ;:;,: : :: ß 'fi * .. ''''''::\>'' i::,": y> ;-:.....:...'" i!tf::"'" ':;':::'::::., "i,' ,,"::: ,<, '" :. }:. ::...' ::'. ':''". . ..-:=:::::-.... -.. .. :'.': - ,-:- ..4: f =: ::.1: . . ^o.<-: A(tf&t '+ 31'",: ':.:' ..:....:.<<: : , ,jì::: :, ain't getting us anywhere, you hiding around corners and laying for me and all that. Why don't we get together some other way, sometime? I could come up to your place sometime, even. You still got the apartment, haven't you? We could talk." "You come up there," he said, "and maybe you wouldn't never leave it again." He hadn't meant to put it like that; what he'd meant was that if she came up, it would have to be because she wanted to stay there and be with him again, but the way it came out it sounded threatening, even to him, and she must have thought so too, for she stared at him blankly a moment. Then, suddenly, she made a kind of a dive out of the corner where he had crowded her. "Then go home then! Get out of here!" he heard her cry, and she be- gan pushing with both hands against his chest. He grabbed her wrists and she screamed. When she screamed, his hands went directly to her thro t. H<:: had only intended to stop her screaming, but as soon as he touched her a strange kind of strength flowed in- ' r """b. "'" ..'F ' M ::,:JJ}--" .. 'J"iMffi/1'it"1f . 1 1,li:t : ,:':: T t , ' , : , ' ' , ' ' 8:" \ :: !J! ,'i 1,: t ,'./ J: , : ::' " .. i ',,/#rr ' : : , 'l ;",; i'!: '< m :: :1:"'> : ': ....._->.: ::;:::.. - ;';0:.'.;0., ... t} ,:: Jf; (::" t':::::;' ::::: :' ,: . '.::.:...:i:.", "::7 ' \.: 'H j l , ' . ;;;@ii/-:::::; :'::::::'::'{: :.., ): ".,# ' ,'ß,:"" . :..:'. . '. . . .. : : , .' :...t; 2 } I .' ,,".,:!.$/" :=:: """ t<V' ' """""..' . " . :': '". ":,'../:' 1 j ., M : -'$: :'>' :W",: i SMALL FRY Comanche Territory JANUARY 2. 7, 19+0 to his hands, a strength that came from somewhere inside him and that once re- leased could not be recalled, so that he couldn't have let go if he'd tried. For a while she struggled, jerking her body this way and that and pulling at his arms with her hands. It didn't bother him. He had shoved her back against the wall, so hard that her head bumped against it and her hat tipped over sidewise. He just stiffened his legs and stood there, his hands locked hard in the flesh of her throat; he was surprised at how strongly he stood there, meeting and conquering every move she made. "Laugh now," he said once, not loud, but almost gen- tly. Her knee worked up somehow be- tween them until it was pressing against his thigh, but there was no strength in it; the strength was all in him, an d soon the knee slipped harmlessly down again. Then her body lashed back and forth once or twice, fast and violently, and stopped, and her eyelids, which had been tight shut, opened so that he could see through her lashes the blue of her eyes, glittering in the dim light over- head. A kind of shudder ran through her. It was some time after that before he realized that she wasn't struggling any more. It was the strain on his arms that told him of the change. Her body was just so much weight now, almost more than he could hold, and he let her slide slowly down along the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her back propped against the corner of the vestibule. Well, I did it, he thought, I did it; and for a mo- ment he stood looking down at her un- certainly, not knowing what he ought to do next. One leg was crooked awk- wardly sidewise, he noticed, so that the skirt was pulled up above the stocking top, and he bent down and pulled the hem over the knee. Then he turned and went out the door. J\ T the top of the steps he stopped n. and looked up and down the street. At first glance it seemed there was no one in sight at all, not a soul; then he noticed a couple of people stand- ing in front of a house farther down the "- block-a man and a girl, he thought, though he couldn't be sure; about all he could see was their faces, and these were no more than pale spots in the shadows where they were standing. Farther still, down almost to Hudson, he sighted two others, two men, dark against the light from a shop window on the corner. And now there was a girl clipping quickly along on the opposite sidewalk; it was